


English Summer

by spammerz



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, Post-Season/Series 02, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 00:06:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8034286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spammerz/pseuds/spammerz
Summary: Jackson isn't a kanima anymore, but he still doesn't know who he is. Allison doesn't know who she is either. They try to work it out.Set between S2 and S3.





	English Summer

**Author's Note:**

> I started this roughly when S3 started and decided to finish it today. Hopefully you enjoy it :) 
> 
>  
> 
> Un-Beta'd

The fucking great thing about England, Jackson decides, is that you don’t have to be twenty-one to buy alcohol. It’s a lot easier for him to pretend to be eighteen than it is for him to be twenty-one, even if it’s shit trying to work out the conversation rate from American dollars to British pounds.

Beer is different here though, and he got rid of it after a bottle. Lagers, ales, he’s not sure what the differences are but it tastes foul and he can’t get drunk on it anyway when he’s constantly stopping to wash out his mouth.

Smirnoff is the same around the world, and even if it doesn’t hit him like it used to, the taste is a reminder.

He drinks Smirnoff straight from the bottle and if he were in Beacon Hills then there’d be some little-old-lady-from-down-the-street knocking at his parents’ door asking about whether dear Jackson’s feeling all right. No-one cares in London, and Jackson’s not sure if it’s a good thing or not.

Jackson takes another swallow as the laptop flashes up in front of him, an email from Stilinski no doubt. Danny prefers skype and Lydia’s not talked to him since he told her he was leaving. Stilinski seems to think he’s concerned with what’s going on back in Beacon Hills. Erica and Boyd are still missing, Greenburg managed to spill coffee on Coach at the local coffee-shop in front of everyone, Peter’s being a creeper.

His cursor hovers over the delete button but he doesn’t click it, Hale’s pack was never his pack but Beacon Hills was his  _home_. They were his friends, in the broadest sense of the word.

There’s a moment of hesitation as Jackson stares at the screen, taking another long sip of the drink and perhaps he’s feeling a buzz? There’s the usual run-on convoluted sentences that would make Harris have an aneurysm if he was their English teacher, spinning circles about things that Jackson already knows.

He stops at the end of the email, Stiles’ wrote something about overhearing Lydia on the phone at the supermarket. Allison’s been in France the whole time? On holiday with family whilst Mr Argent deals with Victoria’s death and moves into a smaller place?

Jackson taps at the keyboard for a moment, he’s been in London for weeks already and he’s bored of it. He’s bored of the grey skyscrapers and their stupid fucking soccer-not-football and the fact that he can keep walking and never run out of street.

Jackson wanted to get out of that town and into something bigger and more for him. He wasn’t quite ready when it happened though.

His parents were worried about the increase in suspicious murders throughout Beacon Hills, they claimed. They didn’t want their son in danger. Jackson will never tell his parents he was the danger.

He doesn’t know what to write, he liked Allison back when things were easier and all he was doing was getting back at McCall. He was surprised at how awesome she was, how funny and how genuinely nice she had been when everyone was stepping around because he was Jackson Freaking Whittemore and the most popular guy at school.

It’s funny how he was the most popular guy at school and he could count his friends using one hand with four fingers left over.

Allison’s email is one of those mature, professional ones: a.argent34@gmail.com. She probably had another one that was like lady_legolas3812@hotmail.com somewhere in the depths of the internet but Jackson wasn’t going to risk it just yet.

He might not have loved the films, but they were interesting enough and there were probably millions out there who thought they were lady_legolas69 or something.

Jackson writes and sends the email before he can chicken out, typing it and sending it in a matter of seconds.

_I hear you’re in France for the summer_

_-Jackson_

It’ll have to do for now.

He sculls the rest of the bottle, tipping it up before throwing the glass against the wall. There’s a perverse sense of satisfaction that comes from the shattering, heightened by his now-in-control hearing, and he falls back on the bed with something that could have been a smile.

 

 

  

There’s an email waiting for him when he wakes up,  _RE: Hey_ from  _Allison Argent_  and he clicks it with more conviction than he opens more emails. It’s almost disappointing, the response.

_Yes._

He doesn’t bother responding beyond a quick  _that’s cool. where you at?_  before he rises out of bed and makes his way downstairs. Allison will still be there after breakfast for a proper reply and his parents have instilled a family meal rule since coming to London. They say it allows them to connect to Jackson more, but he still doesn’t know how he’s supposed to.

He still doesn’t know who he is, in the deepest part of his soul.

‘Morning honey,’ his mother smiles as she sips her coffee. Not for the first time, Jackson can’t believe how incredibly white picket fence his parents are. How they’re so perfect and poised they are, and how fucking Stepford they can be.

‘Morning,’ he grunts as he reaches for the cereal. His father shoots him a look over The Times (at least that’s what Jackson thinks it is) but he goes back to sipping his tea.

Fucking try-hard.

‘What are your plans for today?’ his mother asks, her polite interest at war with the way her eyes keep slipping to the side where the news also flicks across a television screen.

‘I dunno, might look for a cinema or something.’

What else is he supposed to do in a strange city where he has literally no friends and won’t have any until he starts, what do they call it here, sixth form? Seventh?

‘That’s nice,’ his father puts down the newspaper and maybe Jackson’s back straightens a bit because that means  _business_ , ‘but we’ve also got some brochures from the school we’re sending you to. Can you take a look?’

Jackson nods and he does mean it. He wants to know about the school, do people in London wear school uniforms because fuck that. Will there be lacrosse, because that was something he’s good at.

Will he fit in? Or will he sit on the fringes of the school, perhaps not at the top like at Beacon Hills but off to the side and forgotten?

For a required family breakfast, not much interaction happens and Jackson’s pushing around the last bits of cereal before he knows it. He wants to talk to them, but how are you supposed to ask a person about their day when it’s barely started? How are you supposed to talk to a person when you can barely talk to yourself in the mirror?

Jackson opens his mouth once, twice, words stuck in his throat before he finishes his cereal in one quick swallow. He pushes away from the table, rising to put it in the dishwasher when his father looks up from the paper again.

‘Don’t you want to stay and talk?’

The laugh from Jackson is short and bitter, and he’s reminded of better times before werewolves for a single, stark moment.

‘I, I’m good,’ he says with a quick nod as he backs away. ‘You know, get to know the neighbourhood a bit better, check out the brochures.’

‘That’s nice, sweetie,’ his mother says, a small glance at his father. Jackson just nods before he leaves the kitchen, grabbing the brochures off the counter as he makes his way back to the bedroom. (It’s not his yet, and he doesn’t know how long until it will feel like it is).

He flicks through the pages as he walks up the stairs, thin and steep in the way his ones back home, back in Beacon Hills weren’t. The campus looks nice, students smiling in that plastic way they do when a photographer’s trying to make them look genuine. There aren’t uniforms in the last two years, business attire listed that isn’t that different from the blazers and dress-shirts he’ll be wearing.

Jackson flicks his mouse, taking in another email from Allison as his only unread one as he drops into the computer chair before he stops on a word.

Dormitories.

Fuck. He flicks through it again, this time finding the page that tells him it’s a fucking boarding school two hours out from London.

His first thought, the one he can’t keep in and the one that festers beneath everything, hurts more than it should.

What did her do wrong? Was he not good enough?

He got the best grades he could, he fucking worked so hard on lacrosse to impress his parents and they’re packing him up and shipping him off to boarding school?

His second thought is darker, angrier and he wishes he didn’t break that bottle last night because he needs to shatter something, destroy it like he’s feeling destroyed. The brochure rips, his claws digging through the principal’s helpful expression before he scrunches it into a small ball.

Jackson wants to throw it, wants to burn it, wants to rip it to shreds and that’s just what he does. His claws cut through the pages as tears rise in frustration and his teeth dig into his lip, drawing enough blood to drip down onto the paper.

It’s easy for him to lift up the desk chair, to throw it across the room and he ignores the concerned calling of his parents from the ground floor. If he were human, he might not be able to hear it so he can ignore it.

He’s not sobbing, Jackson hates thinking he’s pathetic like that, but they’re break across his body and heaves through his shoulders.

He’s not sobbing.

Jackson looks up at the laptop, still on the desk and perhaps he can ignore that his parents are getting rid of him (again, again, again no-one fucking wants him) if he reads Allison’s email, if he distracts himself.

_I’m actually in England right now, visiting my family. I’ve got cousins who live in a place called Andover._

_It’s actually kind of awful._

_\-- Allison_

His claws click against the desk, he knows Allison’s family were from France long ago and it’s likely that the cousins are hunters as well. They retract back into stubby human nails as he taps out a slow reply, Allison had been facing shit when he left Beacon Hills. Her Grandfather was beyond nuts, last he checked, and she’d fallen deep into the hunting thing once her mother died.

He clicks into Google Maps, one of the few things consistent between Then and Now, and types in Andover. He stares at that short line a bit longer before he makes up his mind.

_I’m two hours away._

He gives her his phone number before he shuts the laptop, stuffing it in one of the bags he’d yet to fully unpack. He’s got more money in cash than he usually does, his mother didn’t want him to be upset by the different systems in the UK as opposed to home, whatever that means. An ATM is an ATM, no matter where you are in the world.

He looks at his lacrosse gear as he picks up a few more things he might need, but probably doesn’t before he turns away.

There’s no point, not right now.

Jackson jogs down the stairs, bag slung over his shoulder and his mother’s waiting at the bottom. She’s helping his dad with his coat and Dad’s holding her bag.

‘You going out?’ she asks as she takes her bag back.

‘Yeah, I’m going to take the car.’ He looks at both of them, defiant and jaw clenched because looking away is a weakness he can’t afford. ‘Have a look around’

‘Sounds perfect,’ his mother sounds relieved and Jackson wonders how weak they must be that they can’t even tell him to his face that he’s being sent away. ‘Have fun, and don’t forget to drive on the other side of the road.’

His phone beeps in his pocket as he grabs his leather jacket — never mind it’s as summer as England gets — and walks out of the house.

It’s a text from Allison, and Jackson almost smiles as he slides behind the wheel of the car.

_What?_

 

 

It doesn’t take two hours, it takes three and a fucking half because London traffic is shit and he got lost twice. Allison calls him after an hour, demanding answers that he waves off as he navigates the ridiculous driving on the other side of the road thing that they do here.

Allison ends up pulling up Google Maps on her laptop to guide him through the last few turns and he slows down when he sees her sitting on the front stoop, cup of tea steaming next to her.

It’s hard to imagine her with a dagger or a bow, and yet he knows that’s what she handles best.

Allison’s tired, and not in the way a teenager should be. Her cheekbones are gaunt and the bags under her eyes can’t be covered up by the makeup she’s got on. It’s the sort of tired that echoes down to your bones and pulls at your every thought, and Jackson knows Allison is too beautiful for that sort of tired.

She’s too kind, too innocent and her soul is so  _clean_  compared to his. She’s been tugged and manipulated in so many places and that’s what scars her, and she doesn’t deserve them. It’s the invisible scars that hurt the worst, and Allison has more than Jackson can count.

‘Hey,’ his voice doesn’t carry, but she hears him as she looks up. He forces a smile, and she tries to as well before it falls and she’s racing forward. He catches her, stumbling back more out of habit than actually needing to.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,’ she mutters into his ear as she clings tighter. It might have hurt, three months ago, but now he hugs her back in a softer squeeze.

‘It’s not your fault.’ The words are an almost conditioned response, lacking in truth but not a lie either. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t any of their faults. Not Derek’s, not Scott’s, not Stiles, it was fucking Peter and fucking Kate.

Allison drops back and she tries to wipe the frustration on her cheeks away, tries to stop the tears from falling but she can’t.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Jackson says, as if it were that easy. She smiles, and it’s as fake as his, before backing away and he watches Allison disappear into the house again. He knows she’s coming, the way she walked with a steady step and her chin tilted up. It’s not the walk of someone who disagrees.

‘Excuse me,’ he turns, a woman standing behind him with that tension that betrays her as a hunter, poised for action. She’s young, in her early thirties at a guess, and her hair is cropped short like Stilinski’s. ‘Can I help you?’

‘He’s a friend of mine, Bridget,’ Allison says. Jackson would guess that she hadn’t unpacked either, because she came back downstairs with three too-full bags in barely a few minutes.

Bridget takes in the bags and the tension in her collapses as she says, ‘Oh.’

‘I’m sorry, but I just, I’ll be back,’ Allison’s words stumbles together in a distinctly Stilinski-influenced way as her face falls. ‘I just need to get away from all of this, just for a little while.’

‘Hey, hey,’ Bridget steps forward and just catches the jerking shoulders to steady Allison. ‘It’s okay, you need to get your head on straight.’

‘I’ll call, and just, don’t tell my dad?’

Bridget nods, and steps back with a small warning look to Jackson. He smiles, and give a little salute of sorts because what else are you supposed to do with a hunter when your almost-friend is sobbing in front of you.

‘Be careful,’ she says, voice low and serious as Jackson lifts Allison’s bags to put them in the trunk of the car.

‘We will.’

Allison climbs into the backseat of Jackson’s car, it’s not the cramped Porsche of Beacon Hills so she stretches out for a moment and he’s silent.

He checks his phone.

That silence hangs and stretches between them as he pulls away from Bridget’s house, each of them waiting for the other. Jackson taps his fingers against the steering wheel as he pulls down a random road. Maybe he wants to get lost.

‘She’s a friend of my dad’s,’ Allison eventually says, meeting his eyes in the rear-view mirror. ‘Sort of, I don’t really know.’

‘She seems … relaxed for a hunter.’

‘Bridget’s out of the business.’

Jackson didn’t know you could get out of the business, it seemed like the sort that would tie you down and drag you back under when you least expect it. Perhaps Bridget was better at ignoring the world than he was.

‘Jackson,’ Allison looks up at him, her lip caught between her teeth as she meets his eyes in the mirror. ‘What are you doing here?’

Their shared silence doesn’t seem so comfortable anymore, and Jackson almost pulls the car to a halt before he answers.

‘I, I just needed to get the hell out of there.’ He hates that he doesn’t sound sure, he’s Jackson Fucking Whittemore, and that means he should be sure. ‘What about you?’

‘Same, I suppose. I mean, how can I look at them when  _I’m_ the reason Erica and Boyd are still missing?’

‘ _You’re_ —?’

He doesn’t care much about Erica, or Boyd and he never has. There’s that underlying, well, tension though that reminds him that he’s still connected to Derek and Isaac and Peter and whoever else makes up that little pack.

‘We,’ Allison pauses, ‘ _I_  hunted them.’

‘Gerard?’ That man controlled so much of Jackson in so little time, who knew what else he did.

Allison pauses, again, and this time Jackson can almost taste the jumbled mess of insecure-scared-ashamed in the air.

‘I don’t know.’

 

 

 

They stop for lunch, some small town that has little old lady cafes where everyone knows each other and Allison ducks away from the wondering looks. Jackson tips his chin up in defiance or acceptance, he’s not really sure.

Everything tastes kind of shit now, Jackson’s not sure whether it’s English cooking or his advanced werewolf tastebuds. Derek had run over a few things before he had packed to leave, but that hadn’t been on the list.

‘Have you heard from Lydia?’ Allison asks around a mouthful of sandwich. Jackson shakes his head as he pulls at the crust, he can almost imagine Coach yelling at him for not maintaining a proper lacrosse-friendly diet. It’s easier maintaining his shape that now that he’s a werewolf.

‘She’s not talking to me, Danny and Stile—  _Stilinski_ , gives me updates occasionally, but she’s not talking to me.’ Allison’s got the smallest smile at his slip up, and it’s not quite the beautiful sunshine it used to be, but it’s better than the cold hunter from that night. ‘You?’

‘Occasional skype and email, but she doesn’t like to lose her sleep or her study time.’

Jackson’s still coming to terms with Lydia’s intelligence, he knew she was  _smart_  but it had never really clicked just how much so. A part of him wished he’d not been so blind earlier, just because Lydia was beautiful when she let that go and accepted herself.

She made it look so easy.

‘Did she apply for that program thing she mentioned?’ More like left the flyer lying around where Jackson could see it. Ms Martin mentioned something about it, and Jackson always assumed it had been her who put it out. He only just realised it was Lydia’s before he left.

‘She did, wanted a break from the whole supernatural-walking-around-the-forest-naked-thing.’ Allison smiles that tight smile of hers, the one that is too scared to even approach genuine.

‘That’s, that’s good.’

‘Yeah, it is.’

It’s hard talking to Allison, not because it’s Allison but because it’s not Beacon Hills. In Beacon Hills shit happens and you have to roll with it, you have to admit that things are different. But this little café is so boring, so human and it doesn’t seem right to talk to her out here.

It’s almost like speaking about  _it_  would taint the air.

He checks his phone.

 

 

 

They find a bed and breakfast to stay the night, it’s more expensive than a youth hostel and cleaner than anything they would have stayed in if they were in Beacon Hills.

It’s nice.

The woman who hands them the key seems disapproving, two teenagers renting one room with one bed. Jackson resists flashing his eyes at her, baring the teeth that would make her flinch away. Allison puts a hand on his arm instead, and it’s strong and firm despite how small it looks. She smiles at the woman and it’s terrifying because it’s sweet in the way Allison used to be and dangerous in the way her father trained her.

‘Check out’s at ten,’ the woman says, her eyes meeting Allison’s before dropping back down again.

Allison and Jackson walk away, and he sees the way her shoulder slumps after. She doesn’t like being dangerous, but he doesn’t know what to say about it.

The room is nice, the bed large enough that they can lie on it without getting in the other’s space. Jackson had debated on getting two beds, but it seemed too expensive and that distance between them was something they needed to close.

Allison drops her bags on the floor and goes over to the window, looking out for a moment before sitting on the bed. It takes Jackson a moment to realise that she’s taking in the possible exits, not as well as her father would but well enough.

‘Are you going to say anything?’ he asks.

‘Do you want me to?’

It’s a good question, and he pulls out his laptop. There’s an internet connection here and he might be able to catch a quick conversation with Danny. Allison doesn’t watch him, but she’s not ignoring him. He ignores her as the laptop fires up, and checks his phone.

There are no messages.

‘Why do you keep checking your phone?’

‘Habit,’ he lies.

‘You never used to, at school.’ He didn’t, he’d wait for the messages to come to him. ‘You wouldn’t need to.’

‘I guess things are different here,’ he says, and wishes he had some alcohol to drink, to burn at his throat and erase the questions she’s asking him. They’re not the questions he wants.

‘I guess they are,’ she says. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’

She stands up and strips her shirt off, he turns around and looks back at his computer. There’s a mirror and he can see the way she stands in it, unashamed of her body. She meets his gaze in his reflection as she takes off her bra and lifts her chin in something like a challenge.

She’s Allison Argent, and she’s stronger than anyone he’s ever seen.

Jackson doesn’t know how long they stand there, in an impasse that Jackson doesn’t really get. After a few minutes though, she smiles the truest smile he’s seen all day and she turns away.

He thinks that maybe he’s passed a test.

She walks into the bathroom and closes the door behind her. Jackson connects the laptop up to the feeble internet and moments later he’s talking to Danny. Danny smiles even though it’s an impossible, early hour for him, and Jackson feels a weight lift from his shoulders.

Jackson doesn’t pay attention to the time when he’s talking to Danny, not until Allison walks out and she’s drying her hair with a towel. She leans over Jackson’s shoulder to say hi and Jackson realises that maybe Allison needs as much as he does.

He doesn’t know what it is quite yet, for either of them, but the company is pleasant enough. Danny says something and Allison  _laughs_  and Jackson realises that maybe things might be okay.

He doesn’t check his phone.

 

 

 

Jackson wonders how much of Jackson Whittemore is real anymore, how much of Allison Argent or Scott McCall or Stiles Stilinski is real anymore. How much of them have burnt away with Peter Hale and Kate Argent? How much has been rebuilt by Derek Hale?

He’s lying on top of the blankets because Allison’s underneath and a werewolf doesn’t need heat as much as a human does.

A werewolf doesn’t need heat as much as a lizard does.

He doesn’t say it but he likes knowing he’ll be warm enough without the blanket, because if he gets cold then he might start turning back. Scales might replace the skin that he’s almost comfortable in and this time he won’t have any help.

‘Go to sleep,’ Allison says, muffled by the pillow before she turns over to look at Jackson in the dim light.

He doesn’t say anything.

‘Jackson?’ Allison sits up and she sounds like herself, like the Allison-that-was with concern lacing her voice instead of fear. ‘What is it?’

He takes a moment to speak, his voice stuck in his throat and he looks at her. He knows he looks scared. ‘What happens if I become a kanima again?’

For a moment it looks like she’s running through the plans, knife versus arrow versus gun.

‘You won’t,’ she says after a moment. Allison pulls her knees up and he joins her. They sit against the headboard and look forward instead of at each other.

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because you know who you are.’

‘Do I?’

Because last time it was about the love he had for Lydia, but Lydia’s not here anymore and he’s struggling as much as he ever was. He has  _no-one_  here, only the shadow of a girl he’d barely known.

He doesn’t even really think he has himself.

‘What’s started this again?’ she asks.

It’s strange, he thinks, that things are easier when it’s dark. It was dark when he first emailed Allison, hard to believe it was only last night, and it’s dark when he finally works up the courage to tell her what has been weighing on him all day.

‘My parents are sending me to boarding school.’

She pauses, body stiff before she lets out a biting swear that doesn’t suit the whole image that is Allison Argent, bohemian chic.

‘Have you ever thought about talking to them?’

‘How can I?’

She hums, and maybe she understands what it’s like because her parents lied to her as much as anyone.

‘Go to sleep Jackson,’ she says, and she presses a kiss to his cheek before lying down again.

His phone vibrates against the bedside table and he looks at it,  _Mom (England)_  is what he reads on the screen.

‘Are you going to get that?’ she asks, voice already losing the clearer tones as she drifts to sleep.

He swipes the phone and hangs up. It’s two o’clock, he’s been checking his phone for hours. Jackson pauses a moment and then he turns it off, Allison’s phone will wake them up.

 

 

 

They leave the bed and breakfast ten minutes before checkout and Jackson ignores the old woman behind the counter. Allison climbs into the back of the car again, and Jackson starts the engine.

‘Where are they sending you?’ she asks once they’re well away from the village.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, ‘I didn’t really pay attention.’

He turns his phone back on, ne hand on the wheel as he puts the phone on the empty seat next to him. It takes a moment, but soon it’s buzzing with messages from his parents asking where he is.

It took them twelve hours.

‘Do you want to go?’ she asks, and he meets her eyes in the rear-view mirror.

‘I want to be  _home_ ,’ he says. ‘I want to go back to Beacon Hills.’

‘Why don’t you?’

Because he’s too scared to leave his parents, because he doesn’t know who he is, because Beacon Hills reeks with the fact that he is someone and no-one at the same time.

‘I don’t know.’

Allison pulls her knees up as she looks at him.

‘Why did your parents adopt you?’

It’s the first time anyone’s asked that question.

‘I don’t know,’ Jackson repeats.

 

 

 

The hours blur into each other and Jackson starts to get used to BBC One radio. Allison doesn’t say much, but when she does it’s the idle conversation of two people trying to fill a small space.

Allison spots a shop that looks interesting for lunch, and they pull over.

‘Would you have killed Scott, if it had come to it?’ he asks when he’s finished his food. She finished long before him and she looks up, surprised and for a moment fearful.

‘I don’t know,’ she admits, ‘I would have killed Derek, but I love Scott.’

‘Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have killed him.’

‘Yeah,’ she says. If there are any eavesdroppers, he can’t tell because he’s focussed on Allison’s brown eyes and the downward turn of her lips.

‘I would have killed Scott, and Stiles, and Lydia,’ he says, and there are a hundred names that he could keep on listing until the end. ‘I don’t think I would have killed Danny.’

‘You told him to run, didn’t you?’

‘Danny’s the best out of all of them.’

‘Everyone likes Danny,’ and she’s echoing something that Jackson’s heard so many times before. He wishes he was more like Danny sometimes, kind and understanding and able to tell when to stop.

‘Is that why you still keep in contact with him?’

‘He’s not the only one.’ She looks surprised and Jackson would believe her if he hadn’t already talked about this. ‘Stilinski emails me, sometimes.’

Allison smiles and Jackson thinks that things are getting better for her because he’s starting to believe the smiles.

Either that or she’s getting better at faking them.

‘He’s good like that, he’s loyal and more heroic than most of us give him credit for.’

‘He doesn’t deserve it,’ Jackson says.

‘And yet, I think he loves it.’

He’s not quite living it, neither of them will say. Stiles lives on the edge and he sacrifices so much for them but he doesn’t know that pit in the stomach and the claws around the heart that comes from what he and Allison have done, what Derek and Peter have done and what Scott will hopefully never do.

‘Gerard took him, after the game,’ Jackson admits and Allison’s gasp is horrified, ‘beat him up. He gloated to me, I think.’

‘I, I didn’t know,’ Allison sounds so unsure again and Jackson wants to do something but he can’t because he’s useless.

‘I don’t think anyone knew.’

They fall into silence again, Allison tracing her wrist as if reminding herself how fragile humans are while Jackson turns random corners and drives along the roads until he runs out of it.

 

 

 

‘I’m adopted,’ Allison says the next morning, when they’re folding their clothes up to pack again. ‘I mean, they never told me but it was obvious after a while.’

Jackson stays quiet.

‘I don’t look like them, well, I do but not enough,’ she pulls her hair back away from her face, ‘not enough to be their daughter.’

‘How do you know?’ he asks, because he sometimes wonders if he would have ever figured it out alone.

‘I have brown eyes, genetically impossible for two blue-eyed people to produce a brown eyed child.’

Her heart is beating faster than usual, and Jackson wonders if this is the first time she’s ever said it. When he was young he used to look in the mirror and say  _Danny is my best friend. Lydia is pretty. My mom and dad aren’t my mom and dad._  He got used to it, but Allison can’t have yet.

‘Do you know who your parents are?’

‘Bridget’s my biological mom, it’s why I came to visit her.’

‘What about—?’

She looks up and she looks scared.

‘I think, I think he might be Gerard.’

Jackson doesn’t know what to do, so he stands up and he pulls Allison into a hug. She lets out a hiccup and then suddenly she’s crying, harsh sobbing pulling through her and he just pulls her in tighter. They’re going to miss checkout, but he doesn’t care.

Perhaps it’s time for them to stop for a bit.

 

 

 

Allison wakes up with a start, eyes flying open and checking the shadows for  _something_. Jackson’s not sure what she’s looking for: her father, her grand-father, Derek,  _Peter._

‘Allison, Allison!’ Jackson’s got his arms around her, pulling her back into him as she lets out a ravaged sound that is more painful than it should be. ‘Allison, listen to me.’

She sucks in the air, sucks it in and blows it out and clears her mind. Jackson relaxes.

‘He tied them up, and it was just like Kate, but they were so young, so young,’ she breathes and Jackson realises she was looking for Erica and Boyd.

They’ve been in the room for two days now, and Jackson’s starting to wonder if they should move around again. He does like it here though, it’s not too far from wherever they came from and there’s still more places they can go.

‘Hey, they’ll be okay,’ he lies, because Erica and Boyd got out and Derek never found them. He almost sounds like he cares, but Jackson doesn’t care about Erica and Boyd, he cares about Allison Argent.

They’ve not talked anymore of Beacon Hills since she told him she was adopted, he knows not to press on it. He knows what it is like to lose yourself so fully that you don’t know which way to go and where you came from.

‘Erica knew who your birth parents were,’ Allison says after a moment, and Jackson’s head jerks up. ‘I mean, her dad does.

‘She told us when we were in the library, remember? Detention with Stiles and Matt and Scott.’

He doesn’t, not really. He doesn’t always remember everything that came before him turning into a kanima.

‘She said your parents died, in a car crash and they had to perform a caesarean before it was too late.’

It’s the first time he’s ever considered the idea that his parents, his  _real_  parents didn’t give him up.

‘Mr Reyes, he knows?’

‘Something to do with the insurance,’ she answers, and for the first time he considers following Allison back to Beacon Hills just so he can find out who his parents were. ‘Or the estate.’

‘My parents are dead,’ he rolls the word around in his mouth, adding it to his mantra of  _Danny is my best friend. I am a werewolf. My parents are not my real parents._   _My parents are dead._

He checks his phone.

‘My mother is dead,’ Allison says it in the same way he does, a tremor in the middle that indicates she’s not used to it yet.

‘Your mother lives in a little cottage in the South of England.’

In an instant he’s on his back, lips curled into a snarl and Allison’s holding a knife at his throat. Jackson thinks that a part of him should be amused, two teenagers in their pyjamas with a knife between them, but he’s caught on the fact that Allison was hiding it.

How long had she been carrying it?

‘My. Mother. Is. Dead.’ The words are gritted and burn in a way that Jackson almost can’t believe.

Jackson nods, and she steps off and away from him.

 

 

 

England is fucking tiny, and Jackson doesn’t drive in any straight line. He loops around, choosing random roads and doubles back more times than he can count.  Jackson drives three towns away and comes back and it’s been barely a few hours, he thinks.

Allison is waiting for him when he gets back, sitting in the dim breaking light that filters through the gauzy curtains. She’s not holding the knife anymore, but he thinks it’s still on her. He wonders if where her bow and arrow are, tucked away in a bag or abandoned back in that cottage they’d left behind. Even though he knows she still has a knife, he thinks it’s the latter.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, twisting the blanket between her fingers.

‘Don’t be, I’d have done worse.’

The flash of claws and teeth aren’t easy for him to control. Hers is astounding in comparison. Not even that. She’s always been more put together than the rest of them, at school or out of it. It was one of the reasons that he liked her so much, in those moments when they were on the way to becoming genuinely good friends.

Before everything went to shit.

 ‘We’re a mess, aren’t we?’ Allison asks, and it could have sounded like a joke. It doesn’t, instead falling flat and bitter on her lips as she looks up at him.

They booked this room for another three nights, and can’t afford the cancellation fees on top of finding another place to stay. They’ve barely had it for two and it’s marred by nightmares and more.

‘Yeah, we are. But hey, we’re a mess together.’ That does draw a laugh from Allison, something that looks almost genuine and Jackson feels a flare of pride in that moment.  ‘I’m sure we’ll find a way to fix things in the end though. We always do.’

And hopefully they’ll be  _better_ , because that’s what Jackson’s always tried to do. Be Better. Be better than everyone else, be better than the expectations that are laid behind him. Be better than who he was the day before.

He’s never really been that good at it though, being better.

‘What do you want to do today?’ Allison asks, cutting through the silence as she looks at him.

He wants to say sleep, because he has exhaustion lingers in him and Allison’s skin is paler than it was when he picked her up. He can’t say that though, can’t stop for a moment because he knows that if he does then he’ll let his thoughts from last night catch up with him.

‘There’s a park nearby, want to be a teenager again?’

 

 

 

It’s not abandoned, but it’s early enough that no-one’s at the park besides the pair of them. Jackson straddles a swing, whilst Allison slips into hers with a bit more grace. They’ve put their phones out of the way, so nothing will get damaged (not that Jackson actually cares), and just rock back and forth as they wait for the sun to rise fully.

‘Do you hate yourself?’ Allison asks after a moment, voice heavy and Jackson can’t help the spark of bitter amusement. Of course they can’t escape it, the darkness in their lives that rose up only a few months before. ‘I think I hate myself.’

‘I did, I do. But I don’t.’

‘Of course,’ Allison murmurs.

Jackson’s never been afraid of being proud of himself, or at least appearing like he is. But sometimes he can’t help but wonder how he appears to other people, to those who don’t know the tangle of thoughts that have plagued him for so long.

‘No, I mean…’ he struggles for words. He’s not brilliant with them, can’t take the complex and ever changing mess in his head and formulate it into something that another person can understand. ‘Yeah we can hate ourselves, but what happens if we just keep hating ourselves? It gets worse and worse. So, you’ve got to try and not hate yourself. It’s so fucking hard, but you’ve got to try.’

Allison laughs. ‘Not such a dumb jock.’

‘I was  _never_  a dumb jock.’

‘You were a little bit of one,’ she corrects. ‘Or at least you were an oblivious one.’

‘Single-minded,’ he tries, but it doesn’t sit right.

Because at the end of the day he  _was_  single-minded, and focussed on things that were so, so unimportant.

‘I just, how can I not hate myself for what happened?’ she asks.

Jackson tries to understand, he does but he also knows that everything that happened from other people. He only knows fragments that he had to piece together because he lost so much of himself in those past few months, because no-one had trusted him with a truth that he likely needed to hear.

It still sickens him that two people could control him so much that he just lost himself.

‘You talk to people. People who know what’s going on,’ he amends. ‘You ask how you can earn forgiveness. And you  _earn_  it, you don’t let them give it to you for free.’

Allison nods, and then changes the conversation and Jackson feels a little bit of that worry between his shoulders melt out of them. They talk about the weather in England, how it compares to Beacon Hills, and it’s a mindless conversation but a good one as the sun rises.

 

 

 

They get kicked out of the park, eventually, by mothers and prams and more disapproving looks. Allison smiles and apologises, handing her swing over to a five year old who looks as if a single push will sending him falling off. Jackson is less forgiving, but he follows Allison as she leads him to a supermarket.

‘What would you have done? If not for, you know.’

‘I probably would have kept training, a few years and I could have been on the Olympic team for Archery. If I could have, I would follow my dad into the business.’

It amazes him, because she knows that Christopher Argent is not her dad but she calls him that with ease. It’s a truth, a hard fact whilst sometimes Jackson still sometimes struggles with the thoughts that filter through him.  _My mom and dad aren’t my mom and dad._

‘The weapons thing?’

‘Yeah, I mean… I know my stuff and my parents always said I had a head for business. It would have been nice, to do something like that on my own. What about you?’

‘What about me, I don’t know anything about weapons.’

She cracks a smile. ‘I mean, after high school. What would you have done at college?’

‘Lacrosse, sport. Law maybe, if I was good enough.’

‘Law?’ she sounds sceptical.

‘I don’t know. Maybe? Isn’t college about finding yourself?’

‘So you’re saying that you would have taken different classes until you find your perfect major?’

‘I still could. Just,  _here_ , rather than back home.’

‘You could still come back home. Not now, but after high school. It’d be nice, to have you back.’

‘You say that like it’s a shared opinion.’

‘I’m sure it is. Danny at least would be happy to have you back. Just because your parents have moved you here now doesn’t mean it’s permanent, Jackson. You can go back.’

It’s true, he supposes, but still it  _feels_  permanent. It feels like one chapter of his life has been forcibly finished.  They had to start a new one, and it just felt too early. Except he doesn’t want to keep going in his new one, he liked what it was before. He liked the continuity and monotony of being the most popular boy, because then he didn’t have to think about more.

Then, of course, werewolves happened.

Even if he went back to Beacon Hills, he knows he won’t go back to the way it was before.

‘Are you going back?’

‘Of course I’m going back,’ she says, with a happiness that does not sound real  _at all_. Beacon Hills is a town that is stained with blood and bad memories. It’s no longer the Beacon Hills of his childhood.

He’s no longer a child.

Allison selects more food for the cart, filling it up with a mix of healthy food that must have been a part of her hunter’s lifestyle and the greasy snacks that he can now burn off with no problems thanks to an increased metabolism.

He’s no longer human.

‘I might, come back,’ he says, and it’s not a promise but it has the echoes of one in his voice. Allison smiles again, and Jackson feels that little bit of relief and pride because he got something right.

 

 

 

It’s their final day in the Bed and Breakfast, flowery wallpaper starting to get on his nerves and the owner’s judgment stare having lessened considerably. They’ve packed their bags, and it’s almost time for check out, but Jackson can’t quite bring himself to leave. They have no set plan, no idea what they want to do next and haven’t since they set out but now Jackson wants one.

There had been a vague idea of driving up to Scotland and back, just because they could, but now he’s not sure if it feels right. Even though now, with the distance, it would only take a few hours.

‘What next?’ he asks, and Allison hesitates before answering.

She wants to go back to Andover.

 

 

 

The drive back is silent between them, music rumbling at a level which is quiet for Allison but comfortable for Jackson. They’re not talking but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. Issues are still lying between them, probably will always lie between them but Jackson has the clarity that  _that’s okay_.

It’s a strange sort of thought, but one that he can live with.

Until.

‘I think Gerard might be my father. My biological one.’

Of all the things that Jackson thought Allison was keeping to herself, this was not it. The guilt, the shame, the confusion, all shared between the two of them and that’s why the trip seemed to work so much.

But this.

It doesn’t suddenly all make sense to him, not really, but it unlocks a few of the quieter moments. When Allison stared out the window and let out a sigh that was heavy and torn, the hesitance that lingered in her breath when she talked about family, the hatred, both inwards and out, that seemed to course through her.

‘Does that make me evil, because he’s my biological father? Because he’s just so  _evil_  and hateful and spiteful.’ and he can recognise that sound, it’s one he hates. The sound of a voice cracking because tears are about to spill forth.

He pulls the car over.

‘No,  _no_.’

‘But Kate was evil, Kate was  _so_  evil.’

Allison shakes her head, tears streaming down her face and sobs breaking from her chest.  It’s ugly and raw and Jackson can relate to the feeling, the one that latches deep into his soul and drags him about.

‘Kate was evil, and messed up. Gerard was evil and messed up. But your dad, he wasn’t, was he?’

It doesn’t feel right to call Chris Argent anything but Allison’s dad. Just like Allison’s mother was dead and the woman in a cottage in Andover had no relation to her, Chris Argent was her father and Gerard Argent her grandfather.

‘No, he, he was good. I think, I think that’s why he took me in. Adopted me. But what if I can’t escape it? The darkness that just follows them around, it’s going to get me too. I mean, I’m Gerard’s  _daughter._ ’

‘Allison,’ Jackson begins, and he’s not sure if he’s going to say something profound but what he’s saying isn’t unimportant. ‘You’re the fucking strongest person I’ve ever met. You’re not  _Gerard_ , and you’re not Kate. You’re Allison Argent and Allison Argent is funny and kind and just that little bit badass. Just because they’re not you bio-parents, doesn’t mean they weren’t your parents. You’re better than Gerard will ever be.’

She nods, tears not having stopped but slowed. It’s not something that she can let go, he knows that. It’s something that you have to cry out, moments like this.

‘Talk to your dad, your real one. He’s a good one, he probably needs to talk to you about it too.’

Jackson starts the car again and heads south.

 

 

 

Jackson dials a number, swallowing heavily. He wasn’t sure, before, but something about that last conversation that tweaked something in his chest and suddenly this new chapter in his life doesn’t seem so scary.

Maybe the difference is that he needs to start controlling it, rather than let it control him.

‘Jackson? Jackson, where are you?’

‘Hey Mom. I’m sorry, I’m on my way back. I’ll talk to you when I get there? I’ve got a ton of things I want to talk to you about. About moving here and school and stuff.’ It’s not a lie, and it feels like a weight off his chest.

‘Jacks—’

‘Please,’ he says slowly, looking at Allison. She waves him off, smile not broad but not forced as Jackson reverses out of the driveway. They said they’d email each other, and it feels like more than an empty promise, for once. It’d be nice to have a few more people to talk to when he returns to the States.

 ‘And Mom? I love you.’

 

 

 

 _Danny is my best friend. I am a werewolf. My parents are not my biological parents._   _That doesn't mean they're not my real parents._


End file.
